


the blood is compulsory

by Naraht



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Ballet, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: Lilia is an immortal legend; Victor is about to become one.





	the blood is compulsory

**Author's Note:**

> Because the obvious thing to do when you get up in arms about the number of AUs in a fandom is to write another AU...

Western journalists always asked her how she had kept dancing into her sixties. Russian journalists knew better than to ask.

She always gave the same answer: it was the perfection of the technique and the training handed down over the generations that had kept her flexible and strong and free of injury. After all, she was hardly unusual at the Bolshoi. At 72, Boris was still doing all the exercises alongside the dancers in his morning classes. At 86, Galina had still been demonstrating lifts to ballerinas young enough to be her great-granddaughters. And Maya's _Dying Swan_ had trembled on the brink for decades, but had never actually died.

Anyone who knew anything realised why.

***

In the world of figure skating there were no immortal legends. Figure skaters faltered early, their bodies broken down by the demands of their sport; figure skaters aged and eventually died, no different from ordinary people. In Lilia's eyes it was an indignity.

Over the years, Yakov had railed passionately against so many injustices; this one he had seemed to accept. Until now: now that Victor had won his third world championship and his second Olympic gold. All of a sudden, Yakov was asking her to consider doing something that she had considered entirely beyond the pale.

"He's your student, not just mine," he insisted. "Your training. Your choreography. Your lineage."

"Not my lineage," said Lilia.

"He should be. Think what you could give to him, Lilia. Think what he is now; think what you could make him."

"It's not allowed. He's not one of ours."

"And so all that talent should just wither and die?"

That gave her pause. Victor was not a ballet dancer, true, but his gifts were rare and powerful. In the last few years his jumps had attained a balanced perfection that could only be called art. And yet, entering his mid-twenties, age was already beginning to touch him. Aches, pains, the start of osteoarthritis, minor surgeries... it was almost shocking.

Lilia studied her husband. Age had graven deeply into him over the decades. What little hair remained on his head was iron grey. Lines of pain and care were carved into his skin. His body was heavy and stiff. He was Victor's future. She could have prevented it all; she had not.

"But Yasha," she said, faltering. "If it had been anyone, it should have been you..."

It was beginning to be more than she could bear. Once she had sworn to herself that she would stay by his side until she sat at his deathbed. Now she knew that she wasn't strong enough. She would leave him soon; she would never tell him why.

He had never pled for himself, on his own behalf. She was grateful for that. It would have been too difficult to refuse him.

"Do you think that I would have deserved it?" he asked, as if he had just read her mind. "Yakov Feltsman, an immortal legend? Really?"

She could not contradict him, much though she might have wished to. They studied each other. There was a long silence.

"Vitya does deserve it," said Yakov. "You can't deny that."

***

"Tell me your lineage," prompted Lilia.

Victor obediently recited the lesson she had taught him: "Petipa - Vaganova - Ulanova - Baranovskaya - Nikiforov."

"Good. Remember it always." She paused. "Are you ready?"

Victor rolled his head from side to side, circled his shoulders, as if he were about to take the ice. Then he sighed and squared them up, lifting his chin. The tendons in his strong, noble neck stood out in high relief. Beneath his pale skin one could see the blue of the veins.

"I think so," he said.

Lilia reached up to touch his neck, letting her thumb rest for a moment on the carotid.

"This will hurt," she said. "Everything worthwhile hurts."

"I know. I'm ready."

She put her hands on his shoulders and he sank to his knees before her, for all the world as if they were dancing a _pas de deux_. (But no _premier danseur_ at the Bolshoi would have winced.)

Lilia leaned forward and pressed her lips to his neck. 

***

That was the easy part. Afterwards it became more difficult.

"You actually have to suck someone else's blood?" asked Victor in horror. "Every week or two?"

Lilia shrugged. "Or so. It depends how hungry you are." 

Some of her fellow dancers took pride in feeding as little as possible, saying that it made them feel sluggish. Personally Lilia believed that you had to keep up your strength.

"But of course you have to feed," she added. "What are juniors for?"

All those students from the Academy, decades of them, pinched and pale and earnest. Of the hundreds and thousands she had known, she remembered only a handful of names, a handful of faces. All the rest had faded back into the mists of the past – if indeed she had ever known their names in the first place. 

Most had never graduated; some had graduated and spent a few years in the _corps de ballet_ , or gone back to provincial theatres and provincial studios, aging year after year and treasuring the memories of their small encounters with the immortal legends of the Bolshoi Theatre. For them it was a privilege to have contributed to nourishing the glory of ballet. (And in the mean time they made for very obedient students.)

No, Lilia suffered no guilt at all. But Victor was still grappling with this new idea.

"Do you just _ask_ someone," he said, "or...?"

"Ask them?" she replied disdainfully. "You _tell_ them!"

She was privileged; she knew. Many of her kind were condemned to live without the support of an institution like the Bolshoi. For them it could be more difficult to feed without exciting alarm or resistance. But she had never known anything else.

"Or," she conceded, "if you're very lucky, perhaps you have a lover..."

Her gaze must have drifted unconsciously towards Yakov, who was sitting in a corner listening to their conversation; Victor's eyes followed hers.

Yakov looked annoyed and slightly embarrassed, as if she had inadvertently revealed some tidbit about what he liked her to do to him in bed. In a way she had.

"It turns out that it's good for high blood pressure," he mumbled, looking away.

Victor took no interest in this. "I don't have a lover," he said mournfully.

"A junior then," said Lilia. "And soon. It will weaken you to delay your first feed."

***

All the students at the Academy understood their duties before they left the first grade. They all dreamt of being called out of class one day, singled out in the service of some immortal legend. 

By contrast no one at the Sport Club had received any sort of preparation or instruction. It was for this reason that Lilia lingered outside of the locker room, ready to support Victor if he encountered any difficulty. At the moment it seemed that he was mostly encountering shouting. 

"What the hell, Victor?! Is this some kind of stupid joke? Get away from me!"

Lilia smiled to herself. There was nothing wrong with a bit of spirit. Perhaps one day little Yura, if he was worthy, would become an immortal legend himself.

**Author's Note:**

> [Boris Akimov celebrates 50 years with the Bolshoi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu7OX78hhRw)   
>  [Galina Ulanova demonstrates a lift at 86](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_7F6AiHtco)   
>  [Maya Plisetskaya dances Swan Lake at 48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE8mkVxH7P4)   
>  [Maya Plisetskaya dances the Dying Swan at 62](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIKoc4X0Cko)


End file.
